Allow me to explain.
Whether I conveniently ignored the twitter chat beforehand or just didn’t notice it, I was rather bemused to learn that hill running was on the cards for Run Dem Crew West last night. Oh how we laughed and joked as we warmed up and Cory told us that we would hate Rick “the king of hills” by the end of the session. How we smiled as he told us that there would be repeated hill training and it would help improve our racing. How we nodded when he explained that in order to build up strength and stamina, hill training was an essential part of running, and that we would learn to love it. And with that, we were off – heading out into North West London, avoiding the cars and eventually arriving in a the plush green of….Primrose Hill. Hang on a minute, we all cried (at the back) this is SERIOUS hill training. WE CAN’T DO THIS! Momentarily distracted by Jimmy Carr who posed for the photo below (“fine, but make sure you’re quick”), we then we had our pre-hill chat from Rick.
Photo by @BitBeefy
He taught us from above….on a bench….and really broke down why hills would help us build up the strength in our hips and core necessary to run as we want to. As we dream to. This particularly hit home as I had been told the very same when I visited the chiropractor last year with a bit of a hip injury: “You really need to build up your core and your thigh muscles because your back is so weak that your hips are taking the strain. Go to yoga and do more inclines when running.” I nodded emphatically, did a couple of yoga classes and then forgot all about the advice….until five weeks after the marathon and I’m still hobbling about with shooting pains in my hip. I really showed them…..that I’m an idiot.
So we listened to Rick’s sage words of wisdom, and headed up the first hill. It wasn’t too bad…until we reached the summit and saw what was to come: a fairly dramatic decline (dramatic to me) that we would then be headed back up. Numerous times. We posed for the obligatory team photos, admired the lovely view and then we were off down the hill we were about to head back up. There were several other runners tackling the hill too, so there was a good sense of camaraderie going on.
So it was climb time. Trying to remember everything Rick had said, I learned slightly forward and tried to pump my arms a bit to give me a boost. The first half felt ok, I tried to stay on my toes, but as I began to reach the top, I felt like I was running through treacle. My legs slowed r-i-g-h-t down, but I managed to get there. Rest and repeat. Four times for me, FIVE times for the heroes who didn’t sit the second to last one out (eek). Then it was back down and home, with a few disco sprints thrown in for good measure.
Photo care of @BitBeefy
I don’t think I’ve EVER worked so hard on a training run, but hills are definitely something I’m going to be adding into the mix from now on: to build up strength, and to give me the needed mental push when racing longer distances. We used to be told to train on Christmas day when rowing at uni so that when we sat on the start line during the summer and looked over at the other boats, we could think “ha, I was out training on Christmas day when you were sat inside doing nothing.” I’m going to think about my hill training sessions in exactly the same way (even if every runner in-the-know is already beasting up and down them every week): “I’ve powered up brutal hills every week so I can get here, what have you been doing?”
#RDCWest by @BitBeefy
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